Pain's Narrow Aisle
by Athena Parthenos
Summary: Remus Lupin struggles desperately with an unbearable grief. OotP spoilers.


Title: "Pain's Narrow Aisle"  
  
Author: Athena Parthenos  
  
Feedback: Yes, please. I'm always looking to improve.  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Category: Angst  
  
Spoilers: BIG OotP spoilers. Don't read if you've not finished the book.  
  
Summary: Remus Lupin struggles desperately with an unbearable grief. OotP spoilers.  
  
Disclaimer: The characters of Harry Potter belong not to me but to the wonderful J.K. Rowling. I am making no money off this; I'm merely borrowing the characters for a little while, and will return them, good as new. The poem "Solitude" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox is used without permission, and is most certainly not mine.  
  
Author's Note: Lupin is my favorite adult character, and I wanted to write a Lupin-centric vignette about the death. *sniff* Here goes, then. As for the title, that is taken from a line in Wilcox's lovely poem "Solitude". I feel it describes poor Remus in both his grief, and in much of his life. :( Also, many thanks to my beta reader and dear friend Sara (nom de ff.net, lise carew), without whom this story would never have seen the light of day. Thanks again! :-D  
  
**********  
  
"Solitude"  
  
By Emma Wheeler Wilcox  
  
Laugh and the world laughs with you;  
  
Weep, and you weep alone.  
  
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,  
  
But has trouble enough of its own.  
  
Sing and the hills will answer;   
  
Sigh, it is lost on the air.  
  
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,  
  
But shrink from voicing care.  
  
Rejoice, and men will seek you;  
  
Grieve, and they turn and go.  
  
They want full measure of all your pleasure,  
  
But they do not need your woe.  
  
Be glad, and your friends are many;  
  
Be sad, and you lose them all.  
  
There are none to decline your nectared wine,  
  
But alone you must drink life's gall.  
  
Feast, and your halls are crowded;  
  
Fast, and the world goes by.  
  
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,  
  
But no man can help you die.  
  
There is room in the halls of pleasure  
  
For a long and lordly train,  
  
But one by one we must all file on  
  
Through the narrow aisles of pain.  
  
**********  
  
Remus Lupin bent over and tied the straps on his cracked, ancient boots. The stained leather was rough against the palms of his hands. He straightened back up and stood, taking his shabby, patched robes from the back of the ironwork chair at his bedside. He shrugged into the fraying robes, his movements slow, unhurried. He caught a glimpse of himself in the old mirror on the wall and wished he hadn't; the man looking back at him was haunted, haggard, lost. He stared for a few moments into his own sunken eyes, then mechanically ran a hand through his graying hair, smoothing it down. He gave his reflection a wan smile. "Don't smirk at me, werewolf," the mirror snapped, but Lupin ignored it, still smiling faintly; after all, it told him that every morning. Living in number twelve, Grimmauld Place meant that he was faced with such delights daily.  
  
He opened the door, stepping onto the landing. He glanced around; nobody else seemed to be up yet. This was unsurprising; it was four in the morning, after all. Lupin stole silently down the stairs, taking care not to wake the beastly Mrs. Black.  
  
He slipped into the kitchen, thinking vaguely of making some toast or sausages. He wasn't particularly hungry, but the full moon was approaching, and he knew he would need all his strength for his transformation -- especially when he would not have Sirius there to care for him afterwards. . . .  
  
Lupin bit his lip. It had been only days since Lupin had seen Sirius fall through the tattered black veil in the Death Chamber in the Department of Mysteries. His stomach churned as he thought again of Harry's frantic attempts to help his godfather, of Sirius' look of mild confusion at the fact that his life had ended, of the black veil fluttering as if in a high wind, then falling terribly still again. Lupin took a deep breath through his nostrils, willing himself to remain calm.  
  
He had been walking around for the past four days in a numb fugue; he remembered only vaguely his actions after Sirius' fall. He knew he had thrown his arms around Harry; he knew Harry, poor, tortured Harry, had fought him, trying to escape, convinced Sirius would crawl through that veil and leap up again, good as new. Beyond that he recalled only tiny snippets, little vignettes, of his own life: Molly Weasley, flinging her arms around him and sobbing; Moody, sinking into a seat with his scarred head in his hands; Dumbledore, looking down his long crooked nose at him, his blue eyes wet, his hand on Lupin's shoulder.  
  
Lupin shook his fractured memories away, opening a cupboard door and taking out a frying pan. Sausuages it would be, he had decided; he always craved meat around the full moon. He set the pan down on the old-fashioned stove, turning to the antique icebox in the corner (the Blacks would never have deigned to have something so ridiculously Muggle-esque as a refrigerator in their home). He rummaged through it and pulled out a large battered package of plump sausages, which he ripped open, dumping all the sausages unceremoniously into the frying pan. He pulled out his wand and tapped the pan; the sausages began to sizzle, sending up a delicious, tantalizing smell despite the fact that he still did not feel hungry.   
  
He put away his wand, opening one of the drawers and pulling out a large serving fork. He stabbed a sausage with it, and then a loud, weird cry floated down the stairs. He dropped the fork with a loud clinking noise and set the pan back down, pulling out his wand again, suddenly apprehensive. The hair on the back of his neck tingled as the cry sounded again, shrill and fierce. The wail was accompanied by angry scratching noises, and comprehension dawned upon him:  
  
Buckbeak.  
  
He lowered his wand, sighing heavily. He had liked Buckbeak, yes, from what he had seen of him, but that was very little. Sirius had taken care of all of Buckbeak's needs: feeding him, exercising him, even bathing him when the distinct scent of unwashed adult hippogriff became too strong. Sirius had told Lupin, again and again, that sometimes -- a lot of times -- Buckbeak was the only company Sirius could stand. "He doesn't ask how the day was at the house. He doesn't rub my nose in the fact that I can't get out of here and *do* something," Sirius had told Lupin darkly once. "Not that you do, of course, Remus," Sirius had added hastily, guiltily. "But you're always *busy,* now. Out doing important things for the Order, while I'm trapped in this stinking house with *Kreacher.* Buckbeak's all that keeps me sane."   
  
Lupin tucked his wand back into his robes and picked up the serving fork and frying pan, resuming his cooking. As he did so he decided to bring the food upstairs to share with the hippogriff. Buckbeak would enjoy it, he knew. With a twinge of guilt he wondered how long Buckbeak had gone without feeding; then he remembered how he had passed Mr. Weasley (stopping by after a terrible day at the Ministry) on the stairs yesterday, and how the other man, looking deflated and upset, had been carrying a bagful of dead rats. He felt suddenly grateful that Mr. Weasley had thought of Buckbeak; Lupin would no sooner have been able to remember the hippogriff than he would have been able to laugh.  
  
Buckbeak let out another high, keening cry, and Mrs. Black awoke.   
  
Lupin swore, dropping the fork and finished sausages back to the counter. He sprinted up to her portrait as her curtains parted and she began to scream, "WEREWOLF! CREATURE OF FILTH!" He wrestled with the curtains, trying to pull them shut over her bulging eyes and lolling head. Vaguely, mistily he remembered he had never liked Mrs. Black, even as an eleven-year-old fresh off the Hogwarts Express.   
  
"VILE, DISGUSTING, PUTRID HALF-BREED!" In the back of his mind he saw their first meeting again; he, James, Peter, and Sirius had gotten off the train their first year, promising to write each other and meet up over the summer.   
  
"HOW DARE YOU STAIN THE HOME OF MY FATHERS!" Mrs. Black, a tall, austere woman, had swept across the platform to her son, where she had sniffily demanded he introduce his friends. She had looked particularly hard at Lupin, who had smiled up at her politely.   
  
"ANIMAL! YOU REPULSIVE, LOATHSOME BEAST!" Upon hearing his surname the lines around her mouth had tightened, and then she had said coolly, "Your parents are Muggle-born, are they not?" Lupin had nodded, a little confused. She had merely looked away from him, as if he had ceased to exist, and grabbed Sirius by the hand. Lupin had watched uneasily as she hauled Sirius away from them, telling him they had lingered quite long enough.   
  
"BASE CREATURE OF DIRT! FOUL HALF-BREED STAINING --" Panting, Lupin at last succeeded in wrenching the curtains closed. Before Buckbeak could get her going again, Lupin darted back into the kitchen for the food, dashed up the stairs to Sirius' mother's bedroom, and opened the door.  
  
Buckbeak backed away quickly from the door, having been sitting at it tearing up the carpet. Buckbeak straightened up haughtily, bits of carpet dangling from his talons. A ragged bandage was wrapped around one of his hind legs; Kreacher had injured the hippogriff the day of the flight to the Department of Mysteries in order to keep Sirius away from the kitchen fire. The bandage looked gnawed on; Lupin made a mental note to change it.   
  
Buckbeak's bright orange eyes bored into Lupin, and Lupin kept eye contact, holding out the sausages where Buckbeak could see them. He was unable to quell the feeling of disquiet within him; he felt a stranger in this room, taking over the only duty Sirius had enjoyed. . . . He shook the thought away, bowing deeply, then straightening. At last Buckbeak inclined his head. Buckbeak looked at him appraisingly, then stepped forward, nudging Lupin's hand with his wickedly curved beak.   
  
"Here," said Lupin shortly, spearing a sausage on the end of the serving fork for himself and setting the pan on the floor. Buckbeak settled himself on the ground, folding his wings, and eagerly ripped into the food, using his huge talons and beak and making odd cooing sounds as he ate.   
  
Lupin quietly closed the door. He pulled out his wand again and lit the lamp on the wall, looking around the room curiously. He had been in here only a few times, and never for very long; Sirius had made it clear that his mother's room was not a place to be frequented by the sane and normal. It had been Sirius' joke that the only reason he would spend days up in this room with Buckbeak was because he himself was as far from sane and normal as one could get.  
  
Thinking of Sirius' dark humor, however, made Lupin's throat tighten, and he banished the thought by looking around the cold, forbidding room as Buckbeak continued to devour the food. Absently, Lupin blew on the sausage, then nibbled reluctantly at it. He gazed around the room, taking in the scratched, beat-up wardrobe in the corner, the windows with their ragged curtains drawn, the moth-eaten rug, the massive, dusty four-poster in the center of the room. The bed was particularly cold-looking; its head- and baseboard were wrought of iron, in the form of several sinisterly twisting and twining serpents. The bedclothes were ripped and stained, no doubt due to Buckbeak's residency; the pillows looked as if they had been chomped on more than once. Lupin shivered, forcing himself to take another bite of food.   
  
Buckbeak had finished and was now licking the frying pan with his gray, raspy tongue. He glanced up, looking askance at Lupin. Lupin frowned and said softly, "No, I reckon I'd best eat this, Buckbeak." Lupin realized that he had hardly eaten since the debacle at the Ministry, and he choked down another mouthful of steaming sausage.  
  
Something bright, sitting on top of the ghastly-looking vanity at the other end of the room, glinted, catching his eye. Lupin made himself swallow the rest of his sausage, then strode to the vanity, muttering "*Scourgify!*" at the large pile of hippogriff dung in his way. He dropped the serving fork on the counter, picking up the bright object. It was a mirror.  
  
Lupin stared at it, something painful happening deep within him. He recognized it, of course -- how many times had he seen James and Sirius coming out of detention with grins on, tucking their mirrors into their pockets? He had had no idea that Sirius had kept his; he had supposed that the two-way mirrors had disappeared, with James' dying and his house being destroyed, and Sirius imprisoned in Azkaban. Here, then, was one of them. Where was the other?  
  
Lupin held it up to his own face, studying it intently. Had perhaps Sirius taken the other mirror with him to the Ministry? If so, why had he left one here? Lupin's mouth sagged at the corners as he turned the object over, looking for any indication as to the owner of the second mirror. There was nothing. Lupin's eyes narrowed, and with his free hand he pulled open the top drawer of the vanity. He shoved the mirror into it and pushed the drawer back in, somewhat harder than he meant to. He turned around only to find Buckbeak standing before him, cocking his head to one side.  
  
"Yes, Buckbeak?" asked Lupin.  
  
The hippogriff stared at him, then nudged Lupin's chest with his head, pawing at the rug with his talons. Buckbeak was making a weird, unhappy gurgling noise deep within his throat. He looked up at Lupin, his eyes seeming worried, tense.   
  
Lupin wondered at the creature. What did he want now? The answer was soon revealed when Buckbeak carefully took a hank of fabric of Lupin's robes in his beak and led him around to the side of the bed away from the door. An old photo album, along with several empty glass wine bottles, lay in the thin layer of dust on the floor. Lupin picked up the photo album and sat down with it onto the fierce-looking bed, apprehensive at what he might find, but helpless to stop himself looking through it.  
  
The very first page tested him. A large color photograph was mounted handsomely on the page; it was a picture of James, Sirius, Peter, and himself, all of them waving cheerfully up at him, grins on their young faces. Sixth or seventh year at Hogwarts, perhaps, it was. Lupin stared at it, unable to pull himself away. Peter was laughing, his round face bright and happy, showing no sign that he would one day betray a best friend to his death. James' hair was, as usual, calculatedly unruly. He was winking cheekily up at Lupin, not knowing he would be dead in ten years. Lupin carefully examined his own image; he could not remember the last time he felt as young and healthy as he looked in the picture. There were no gray hairs for his young counterpart, no lines etched deeply into his thin face. Lupin shook his head regretfully, then looked to the last young man in the picture.  
  
Sirius looked remarkably young, as well; his eyes were bright, his smile broad; he was devastatingly handsome. Lupin thought bitterly that the young Sirius in the picture had no idea that he would be spending twelve years of his life in Azkaban, and a sick swoop of anger flared suddenly within him. They had all been so *young.* Their futures had looked so bright, so hopeful! The world had been theirs. None of them had cared that Peter had only scraped a single N.E.W.T. or that Lupin was a werewolf. They had believed they could do anything, and what a rude awakening it would have been for them if they had discovered that in only twenty years or so, Peter would be a Death Eater, and James and Sirius would be --  
  
He was brought out of his reverie by Buckbeak, who had lifted one massive scaly limb and was carefully tapping Sirius' grinning face with a dark talon. The hippogriff looked up at him questioningly, and Lupin understood.  
  
"You want Sirius."  
  
The hippogriff nodded slowly at the sound of the familiar name, bright eyes twinkling, and Lupin gazed at him.  
  
"Buckbeak, Sirius isn't -- he can't -- he's not coming back," said Lupin. The words tasted like ash.   
  
Buckbeak tilted his head to one side, uncomprehending.  
  
Lupin took a deep breath, then slammed the photo album shut and dropped it to the floor, where it bounced up once before settling back into the dust. Lupin stood quickly and brushed off his tattered robes. "Buckbeak," he said quietly, "Sirius is not coming back."  
  
Buckbeak's large round eyes narrowed, and he made a curious, almost mewling sort of noise. He tapped the leather cover of the photo album with his talon almost impatiently, as if to say, "Do you really think I'd fall for that?"  
  
Lupin sidled past the expectant hippogriff, panic welling within him. He had lingered far too long in here. What was he doing, trying to explain to a hippogriff that its best friend was gone? What was he doing, trying to explain to *himself* -- He grabbed the serving fork from the vanity, his knuckles whitening around the handle. He heard the hippogriff padding along behind him and whirled, stunned and horrified to find himself trembling. He attempted to keep his voice calm, but couldn't.   
  
"Buckbeak, I -- I've got to be going. Go lie down." He stumbled backwards, away from the hippogriff's accusing stare. Buckbeak followed him, still looking confused, and Lupin mumbled desperately, "He's not coming back -- Sirius is gone, Buckbeak, he's . . . dead."   
  
There was a terrible tightness in his chest; it was getting hard to breathe. Buckbeak blinked, not understanding.  
  
The serving fork dropped from Lupin's hand, clattering on the floor. "He's dead." The words were too harsh, too final; his throat felt constricted. His eyes darted around the room, resting anywhere but on the earnestly watching hippogriff with its wide eyes and blank expression. He realized his back was now against the wall. "Buckbeak. . . ." he pleaded. "He's gone. Sirius -- he's gone. He won't -- be coming back." Lupin's eyes were burning. "Sirius is dead."  
  
Buckbeak's outline blurred. He mewled again, the sound piteous and lost. The noise died away in the stillness of the room; the only sound now was Lupin's breath coming far too quickly. He shook his head, his face twisting as his own words seemed to echo sickeningly around him. "*Sirius is dead. . . .*" The words swirled within his mind, jarring, terrible, impossible --  
  
His hands were flat against the wall now, his fingers splayed as if trying to dig into the slick wood of the boards -- he turned his head away, screwing his eyes shut -- his heart hammered, throbbed, within his chest -- he felt himself going cold -- he was nearly panting with the pain of it all, the weight of it all, trying to catch his breath and failing -- he buried his face in his hands and slid down the wall to the floor -- he was crying, hoarse racking sobs that shook his body, spilling hot tears on the palms of his hands as he wept.  
  
Before him Buckbeak seemed at last to understand. The hippogriff's hooves and talons skittered on the wooden floor as he sent up a frightened wail that made the floor shake. He beat his wings furiously, the gusts of air extinguishing the lighted lamps and plunging the room into darkness. The distraught hippogriff began to screech, and Remus Lupin closed his eyes and cried.  
  
***  
  
The bedroom door creaked open and a shaft of light from the hall stabbed inward, illuminating the threadbare rug on the floor. "Buckbeak? What're you *on* about?" muttered a gruff voice. "*Lumos.*"  
  
Lupin started; he had, exhausted, slipped into an uneasy doze. He glanced up, wiping at his pale, tear-streaked face, and saw Mad-Eye Moody standing there in his nightshirt, magical eye in a glass of water in his free hand, his lighted wand held aloft in the darkness as he looked around at Buckbeak. The hippogriff was now lying on the bed, making gasping noises into the ragged pillows, his wings jerking convulsively as he shredded the bedclothes with his talons.   
  
"Alastor?" said Lupin quietly, his voice thick.  
  
Moody jumped and stared down at Lupin, his normal eye widening. "Remus? Remus -- what're you doing in here? That damn hippogriff wouldn't shut it and I came in to see what the ruckus was about --" Moody squinted at him, going silent, his expression becoming sober and knowing.  
  
"It's all right," said Lupin huskily, swallowing the lump that came to his throat at the sight of Moody's pitying normal eye. "I -- I came to feed him, and he just -- he wanted Sirius. . . ." His voice trailed off, and he found himself unable to continue, feeling as if there was only a vast and unbearable void where his insides once had been. Moody frowned down at him, then held out his wand hand. Lupin took it and Moody, grunting, pulled him to his feet.  
  
Moody looked hard at Lupin, who closed his eyes wearily, knowing how he must appear: exhausted, grieving, weak. When Moody spoke again his voice was a surprisingly gentle growl. "You all right, son?"  
  
Lupin opened his eyes, letting out a deep, shuddery breath. His head ached; he felt weak and almost dizzy. He avoided looking directly at Moody, concentrating instead on the floor. At last he spoke; his answer to Moody's question was simple, honest. "No." He waved aside Moody's attempts to say anything further on the subject, and, drawing himself up to his full height, said bitterly, "But there's work to do, Alastor. We haven't got time for -- for this."  
  
Moody's mouth was a thin, sad line. He looked into Lupin's face, and nodded. "Of course." He smiled ruefully. "I understand."  
  
~FIN  
  
Any feedback would be much appreciated. This is my first Harry Potter fic, and as such I'd like to know what I've done properly, and what I could still improve upon. Thanks! 


End file.
